Magorian Exploit

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[Akkadius]

Exploit

So today I received a message about folks exploiting Magorian at the last day of an event that was already extended fairly graciously

Context

We originally had Magorian at a 8 hour cooldown per instance because that was the intended cooldown for him to be spawning. Several Halloween events folks expressed frustration over waiting for this so we lifted it to be nice and probably shouldn't have done so

Because of this complete lift, folks found a hole and decided that it was ok to exploit respawning Magorian over and over again to get loot of certain items at an accelerated rate that was appropriate for an NPC that spawned once per player, once per 8 hour cycle

On one hand I'm disappointed that even though we changed mechanics to make it easier for players, that the server also didn't say anything about this for what looks like two events now.

On another hand, I'm impressed with the amount of people who have fessed up to doing this and it matches just about everyone I see in the logs and my data

Fairness

For other context, I believe in passing judgement for these sorts of things in a fair manner.

There's no sense in massive bans when folks may have made honest mistakes should be given another chance, but if they continue to completely disregard that second chance that's when there's no excuse and a ban should be issued.

I'm known to give suspensions and item revocation instead of a hard ban because we're all players, we all play against the system in the best way we know how and sometimes that involves a little gray area from time to time and given a second chance I've seen people turn it into something positive more times than just flexing bans.

There are times when bans make sense, there are times where suspension, or extended suspension with item revocation make sense

All I ultimately care is that folks are having fun playing on the server enjoying the content and having a place they can escape life.

Everyone uses macros, everyone automates things to certain degrees, its part of the ethos that is EZ server

Where the line is less grayed, is when exploits are being made that clearly unbalance the server in ways that are hard to deny. When these exploits sit around all the are doing is ruining things for you and other players, so just call them out.

Historically we have a great community of players and this has been no problem and we've had exploits reported and they usually were compensated for being honest and forthright because that is the kind of attitude we want in our community

Action

At this point, there's a good amount of people that were involved here. You know who you are

We ran a 10 day because 2020 has been a suck year and we want folks to have fun, I've been beyond busy to put on anything else. The event is already overly giving, it was designed to multiply the rest of your play time at EZ to a blatant degree.

Its just disappointing that folks would think that these things are not logged, recorded and can't be traced because its all there and you might as well not waste your time

Before I do anything, I'm going to leave it open forum for a while

At this point I'm not sure that we should even do actual Halloween during Halloween because of this

What do you think is fair? What do YOU think should happen? This is your server and your community

[Draca]

I will be the first to come out, and admit that I was one of the people who exploited this. I know better, I know that there are logs kept, but I got greedy. There is no justification as an above average player of Everquest and EZServer to not realize that what we were doing was an exploit, and clearly not intended. I have always tried to be helpful (if not a smart ass) whenever I can, and want to apologize to everyone who may be affected by mine, and other's poor decisions. While the exploit in question didn't directly harm anyone (other than shaking screens constantly), I understand why Akkadius feels the way he does, as I'm sure he hopes that players like myself would report this type of thing, not abuse it for a week.

I would implore you, Akkadius, to not punish the general server population by withholding future events, they had no part in the abuse of this exploit, and should not be punished for the actions of a minority.

I will accept whatever Akkadius, or the general consensus deems fit. I've never cared for people who exploit, and simply got caught up in the loot pinata. I apologize to Akkadius for putting him in a position to have to deal with this, and hope to be able to move on from it.

-Dracawarrior

[runwithscissor]

 Icestriker

I want to personally apologize to Akkadius. You gave us the Halloween event and we did take advantage of Megorian to get items for our toons.
For this I apologize. I honestly don't think it would be fair to stop the Halloween event. I personally think you could suspend my account for the next event.
to let others get items that we took for granted. Please take this into consideration. I personally will never do this again.

                                                                                                                                                                                Icestriker

[Rakharth]

I didnt do this, but might have looted an item from this being done /shrug if it was and it is taken that is fine i will work to get another.

[Mersedez]

My only question is, why is Gavin Newsom a fag?

[Dimur]

Run some queries on the logs, identify the XXXPLAYER has gone offline messages, nuke the loot acquired from that kill.  It sounds like the exploit involved dropping the character from the world and logging back in with some interval so it should be easy to identify based on that.  Blanket bans and rollbacks aren't Akka's style and frankly wouldn't accomplish a whole lot anyhow.  Maybe identify players that are active and trustworthy and deputize them since there is no GM presence to keep people honest.  With all the instancing and dynamic zones, it's unrealistic to expect the server to police itself.  None of these ideas are fleshed out in the least, I just wanted to throw them in for the sake of sparking conversation.

[Akkadius]

Run some queries on the logs, identify the XXXPLAYER has gone offline messages, nuke the loot acquired from that kill.  It sounds like the exploit involved dropping the character from the world and logging back in with some interval so it should be easy to identify based on that.  Blanket bans and rollbacks aren't Akka's style and frankly wouldn't accomplish a whole lot anyhow.  Maybe identify players that are active and trustworthy and deputize them since there is no GM presence to keep people honest.  With all the instancing and dynamic zones, it's unrealistic to expect the server to police itself.  None of these ideas are fleshed out in the least, I just wanted to throw them in for the sake of sparking conversation.

Look for less identification because I have it all, looking more for more what people think in terms of what action should actually be taken on behalf of said actions

[wolfegunr]

I too was involved in this, when I discovered a couple days ago that magorian would respawn after i left the zone and came back. I felt special and spoiled like it was my birthday. I admit I did not even take a second to consider what was broken about it, I just focused on making him dead until the cycle broke itself. It was fun not knowing weather I would get only 1 or 10+ kills on him before he stopped spawing. I could see that I was not the only one getting the spawns, I saw the message spam again and again and FOMO brought me right back to it as soon as I could spawn him again.

After talking to Akka, I really can see his point how this sort of thing can make the server unbalanced. It's not really fair that we can kill the top boss so many times while others are struggling to make even just one set and some people weren't even able to get one. I allowed greed to get the best of me and I admitted immediately to Akka what I had done, but I was not the one to report the flaw and I feel that I should have, looking back.

It's easy to get caught up when all you see are stars and it feels like this is the best thing that's happened to you in as long as you remember. The high I experienced when I killed him has seldom been matched, I would say it's like seeing a GSS after you've spent a week trying to get even one.

I fully accept responsibility for these actions and the consequences that come because of them. It really hurts to see Akka say they may not even be able to play the event now, when I was the one that was in the wrong here. I am truly sorry I was apart of this, I have made a habit of looking out for and helping others in this game and I fell so far from my own example.
-Arkain

[Mersedez]

Look for less identification because I have it all, looking more for more what people think in terms of what action should actually be taken on behalf of said actions

How about they all go get a face and nose hair wax. Post the video on YouTube, post here for us to watch. Not only does that seem painful but it will give us all a good laugh.

[kleo]

Will give my two cents on the matter of exploits cheating in video games period ...For me are the folks involved really sorry they did it? or sorry they got caught if Akka didnt say anything i think just my opinion i doubt anyone would have fessed up to anything so for me my vote is perma ban or delete toons and make them start from scratch start all over it says in the rules there are consequences for breaking said rules if nothing is done or not firm enough people will exploit in the future or break the rules sry if no one agrees but thats my two cents on the matter peace 





                                                                                                                                                                    kleo williams

[bononomon]

as a somewhat newer player i don't have really any idea how offensive or inoffensive the exploit was, but i'm generally against bans since we have a relatively small playerbase and the low-mid tier players rely on the higher tier guys for info, advice and help. also cancelling the halloween event would be a bummer and would punish those of us who have already suffered so much traumatic screen shaking

checken

[Nakemdun]

IMHO I think that delete items gained by the expoiters, and never take off the lockout again. I wasn't involved, but seems like most of the exploiters were end gamers anyway. Short suspension maybe.

On another note can we get pumpkins in nexus flameless next time. It lags out some older/slower systems.

[causticsand]

In my opinion, Halloween is, itself, a kind of "exploit." It is a chance to earn 2x loot, ZP, and amazing augs as well as phenomenal XP over a short period of time.  Ice, Draca, and whoever else are able to pull off this exploit are so far above me in the game that, hearing they did is a little like being at mile 5 in a marathon and hearing that the people in the front at mile 22 had the sweat knocked off their brows to reduce weight.

Now, I've had my own vanilla server and I know first hand how it ruins the game to be able to walk up to Quarm in PoTimeB and do a #destroy. If having fun is the goal of the server, then having god-like powers to kill instantly the toughest thing is a killer. However, so is the mindless killing for days and days hoping for a GSoA or a T5 mob to pop.

Enter the exploiters. If we are honest with ourselves, one of the great joys of the game is to progress even the tiniest amount. However, another, often overlooked joy is to help someone else. I relish the fact that I can be a person that is able to take a newbie by the hand and help push them through something that would take them weeks to accomplish on their own.  When I get bored of the monotonous killing, being able to give someone new the rush of progress not only gives me a shot of dopamine, but helps them, too. Ice and Draca, and whoever else was exploiting have helped my char numerous times and given me the rush of being a helped newbie. Now that I'm able to help others I can see both sides of the being helped and helping coin. Yet, for Ice, Draca, and whoever else was exploiting the event....who is there to give them the thrill of being helped get better? They are the top! I'm not excusing what they did, but I completely understand the rush of getting loot that by all rights you didn't earn.

I would not like to see anyone banned. In my opinion the presence of Ice, Draca, and whoever else that was using the exploit doesn't affect my game play in the slightest. As I said, they are so far out in front of me and my crew that it's meaningless to be jealous or feel they have harmed me because they and/or their alts got the tiniest bit better. Their giving back to the community greatly outweighs any perceived slight I may have experienced in hearing of their cheating.  

Punishment? Permanently change their race to fairy.

[neccos]

Many years ago when haloween first came out there was a full roll back due to a few individuals exploiting the new content.  I had just worked up to my first couple of UW's with some serious legit grinding that week then poof they were gone due to a few that found the loopholes. I was pissed.  I think that it's very unfair to punish the entire community over a few individuals, the rules come up every time u log in.  IMO a total banishment (although stated in the rules) would be extremely harsh, but a slap on the wrists may not deter future exploits, since many have tried and been busted in the past.  I believe an individual rollback would be more in order since they fessed up to it, it seems fair, I'm sure u have the logs that can do that.  Wouldn't blame u if you weren't so generous in the future with the extensions like this although the community as a whole will now pay the price.

[Chieftan]

First off, thank you Akka for the event, and the extension you gave us all, much appreciated

This seems to be a small handful of end players who just got carried away as they have the ability to take advantage of a loophole
Some if not all of these have publicly admitted to atm, you know who they are

These are well respected players and always help others / give helpful info where needed and are an asset to us all
To ban them would be a disadvantage to the server as a whole and the server would suffer

To me you have a few options, prob more than these
1. Putting timer back on, if this will fix the issue
2. Have a private discussion with the players involved though email/discord to discuss
3. Roll back to the end of the original event on offending characters
4. Delete all but acceptable amount of special HW loot / percentage of spears/instance tokens on all offending characters
5. Just a warning that they have all been very naughty boys  

I'm just sorry this had to be put on you to sort out at all

I don't think banning events from the whole server is a favored option, as the majority played within the rules
Again, punishing the server for the actions of a few, but it is your decision in the end and is respected

I hope we can put all this behind us very soon and move on to more enlightened topics

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